My dear Lyell

Very many thanks for your long & interesting letter,—the latter part of which perplexed me not a little till I received the missing sheet.—² You give me some consolation, but I take the Sun much to heart. I have comforted myself partly in the way which you suggest by our ignorance of the Universe, & by reflecting how little we know of the cause of the incandescent masses of vapour forming comets,—by the sudden blazing up of variable stars—extra planetary meteors &c.—³

With respect to long endurance of our existing continents, I formed my opinion chiefly from facts of geographical distribution, to which I allude in Origin—& partly from views given under Coral Reefs.—⁴ I quite subscribe to what you say about denudation & from something I somewhere read or heard (perhaps from you) had come to conclusion that there was much grinding up of matter brought down to lower level; but this w^d not much affect, I suppose, some of the Scotch streams, the carrying work of which I think has been measured.⁵

I am tired with my morning’s work in Brit. Museum—so no more.—⁶

Ever yours | C. Darwin